Juventus are prepared to offer Italy international Daniele Rugani to Arsenal as part of a deal that could see Hector Bellerin move in the other direction, according to TuttoJuve.
As Gunners legend Martin Keown pointed out in conversation with the Independent today, ‘there are eight or nine central defenders contracted to the club obviously (Mikel) Arteta can’t retain all of them’.
With William Saliba on his way too after graduating from the French football finishing school with finishing colours, suddenly Arsenal find themselves with an abundance of centre-halves on their hands.
The problem, however, is that perhaps only one or two of those have proven themselves to be of the requisite quality for a side who finished eighth in the Premier League last season, their worst placing in 25 years.
And we are not including David Luiz or Shkodran Mustafi in that, despite some much improved performnaces during the Arteta era.
So, as it stands, it makes little sense to swap one of the few natural right-backs at Arsenal’s disposal to bring in another player who prefers to play in the middle.
Especially when the man in question is the £22 million-rated Rugani, a 26-year-old who started just two Serie A games throughout the entirety of 2019/20.
Once one of the most highly-rated young defenders on the planet, Rugani is Juve’s answer to Nacho Fernandez these days – an eternal benchwarmer who spends most of his time gathering dust on the sidelines and waiting for an injury to befall one of his more gifted team-mates.
So while Arsenal are crying out for a commanding, dominant presence at the heart of an error-prone backline, their own Virgil van Dijk if you like, Juventus’s fifth-choice is probably not ready to be Arteta’s number one.
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